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Review content:
1. I have been riding for seventeen years. I have experience in almost every riding discipline. I train, own, love, and live for horses. They are my life and thusly, I have devoted my life to protecting and saving them.
2. I train a horse that was born, raised, and boarded at Slocum's until she was eight. I volunteered there for a year. I rescued two horses from there. I am more than versed in their conduct, morals, etc.
3. My ultimate goal in life is to have Slocum's Appaloosa Ranch shut down for good.
Why?
One mare died of heatstroke. She was a big, black Draft mare that had a history of overheating - and what did Slocums do? They took her on a trail ride in the middle of the day in the middle of the summer. And down she went.
I have personally seen two cases (and heard of many more) of mares with tumors that kept them from living a quality life (one lived the last months of her life in a hot shed, bleeding all over her baby while she struggled to breathe). One of them was one that I had help rescue and her current owner was planning on moving her away from Slocum's when she went down on a cold December night.. let's just say that things went badly and the entire Slocum's farm wanted to keep a mare alive who was well into her late thirties, riddled with cancerous tumors, hundreds of pounds underweight, and neurologically unstable.
I have helped feed at this farm and personally unbagged bags of bread that they get for free from local bread stores because it is considered inedible for people. I once asked if a loaf covered in penicillin should be thrown to them, and the response, and I quote, was ""No, what they don't eat, the pigeons will.""
Slocum's is well-known to be tens of thousands of dollars in-debt to multiple veterinary clinics and farriers in the region. Veterinary clinics will NOT visit Slocum's because they never receive payment. The Slocum Family continuously INBREEDS their horses (for those of you familiar with the farm - Moonbeam, the daughter of Cochese, was bred back to Cochese for a baby that was allowed to be carried full-term), overbreeds their horses, and sells them to the public for dollars that would be much better-spent at a non-profit rescue organization like Roanoke Valley Horse Rescue.
Hooves at SAP (Slocum's Appaloosa Ranch) go un-trimmed. Tumors go un-biopsied. Mares (the one that I train and lease from her owner was ""unintentionally"" exposed to stallions THREE TIMES while at Slocum's - one of the babies died and the mare almost died in the birth of her first baby; I came to find out later that Slocum's had intentionally bred this mare without asking permission from the owners) are bred without consideration to bloodline, conformation, age, or health.
I heard that SAP was trying to pass off as a non-profit horse rescue because they have some handicapped horses there.. babies at this farm, barely months old, already bear scars from the barb wire in which they've been entangled. Any horses that are handicapped here have been handicapped because of their surroundings. The Slocums horses have had to be surrendered to other rescues. The Virginia State Veterinarian had ordered Slocums to destroy several of their horses - which they did not do. The Slocums Family has had up to 119 horses at one time. These people, by all accounts, are hoarders, and need to be shut down for good.
Do not buy horses from this farm (or from their affiliate, Ronnie Patsel). Do not ride at this farm. Do not board your horse at this farm.
It's only a matter of time, Slocums. Your days are numbered.
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